Consider the following: A man walks into a restaurant for breakfast. After carefully reviewing the menu, he orders a stack of 3 hot pancakes, 2 hot eggs over-easy, side of hot hashbrowns, and cold orange juice. He then proceeds to read the morning newspaper. His breakfast is served to him 15 minutes later. The breakfast he receives is a stack of 3 hot pancakes, 2 hot eggs over-easy, hot hashbrowns, and cold orange juice. He decides to finish reading the newspaper before breakfast. When he gets around to eating, he has a stack of 3 lukewarm pancakes, 2 cold eggs over-easy, side of cool hashbrowns, and room temperature orange juice. He eats the breakfast. At the cashier, he complains and argues that he should not pay his bill. The cashier calls to the restaurant manager, who notices the order time on his ticket is 60 minutes ago. Does he excuse this bill or not? After all, the breakfast was served as specified. That time had passed and the environment altered the food is of no fault to the owner.
Now it seems you have two choices, a) Don't charge this person for the fix (assuming that you did not write poor code to begin with), and just be the nice guy. In which case, the scenario is likely to repeat itself over and over until the relationship reaches its inevitable end in resentment and bad feelings... b) Charge her for the modifications. You don't have a choice in however, is how she responds. People will feel how they want to feel, and sometimes even make critical decisions based on those feelings. You just need to let them deal with that. I would be making my business choices based on principals, not feelings. This is not to say that I wouldn't occasionally drop in a token freebie for a good client, but that I wouldn't do it for one that was not paying enough or otherwise make it worth my while. For future reference, I would start making sure that anything you do is pre-approved. That is, you have a written agreement for any fix, addition, or modification that details the cost (that she must pay). It all comes down to this.... Document, Document, Document, Document.... Dave PS. You CAN pick your customers :) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Smeets" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "CF-Talk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2002 10:13 AM Subject: OT: Advice and opinion on client who has a problem paying bills > Hi All, > > I realize this is off topic but I could use some advice from everyone on > this list. > > I have a client that is very stingy when it comes to paying bills. I've > already had one incident with her and that resulted in her getting out of > paying the majority of the bill but this time I fear when she gets her next > invoice, I'll have more trouble with her. > > The thing she likes to do is call me up and tell me there's a problem with > the site and of course since I'm just being the nice guy (the kiss of death > I know) I can just pull the site code up and see if I can find the problem. > Now the latest incident was a case of the links page not working correctly, > I told her it would take an hour to track down and fix and she put up quite > a fuss when I told her that she would be charged for this. (She tried to > argue her way out of paying) In the end I went ahead and fixed the problem > and I sent her a confirmation email before the work was started as well. She > never replied to that confirmation email even though I asked her too. > > So now I'm wondering what are my options. I know I'm going to have trouble > collecting from her, I mean there's more to their next invoice than this > links page and she is well aware of my rates. I don't exactly have the funds > to take her to small claims court either. > > The only option I have come up with is this. I can change the administrative > status on her account to "Disabled" instead of "Enabled" but I think I run > into a problem there because they already paid for the web site last year. > These are all new changes and problems. I figure if I go this route then the > BS will end and at least I will get my money. (She doesn't have FTP access) > > Any ideas are most welcome, I'm not exactly in a position to just dump her > as client but I'm getting sick and tired of being taken for a ride. > > -------------------------------------- > Mark Smeets / stranger0 / ICQ: 1062196 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.prowerks.com/stranger > > "Life is a series of small victories" - Gene Simmons > > > > FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq > Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar > ______________________________________________________________________ Your ad could be here. Monies from ads go to support these lists and provide more resources for the community. http://www.fusionauthority.com/ads.cfm FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
